


Same Time, Another Year

by ArtDeco



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtDeco/pseuds/ArtDeco
Summary: "The air is perfectly, oppressively still. Was it the same this time last year? He supposes he wouldn’t know; this time last year, at six o’clock in the morning, he would have been asleep. And most certainly not naked."Time may be a great healer, but for Toby, old wounds run deep.





	Same Time, Another Year

**Author's Note:**

> I've been doing some work on the psychology of trauma recently, and I'm particularly interested in how it affects intimate relationships and emotional connectivity in later life. And because essays are far less fun to write than fiction, a story emerged. This was quite challenging in places and I wasn't initially going to post it, so feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading x

* * *

Toby remembers a few moments after he wakes. He isn’t usually an early riser, but he forgot to place the blackout boards over his window last night, and the May sunlight, white at this time of the morning, blazes through the curtains. He leans up on his elbow, and peers over Adil’s sleeping form to check the bedside clock: five past five. The alarm will ring in twenty-five minutes, and Adil will have to slip away before the maids and kitchen staff arrive at six.

He rolls onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling. The room is glowing; he supposes it will be another muggy, breezeless day, the kind that will make the tar on the roads sticky, and the water from the cold tap run lukewarm. A heaviness settles in his gut.

He breathes slowly, in and out, trying to ease the tightness in his chest. He’d like to say he hasn’t given today much thought, but in truth the date has been lurking on the fringes of his awareness for the past fortnight. Mr Garland had made a comment when they’d passed on the stairs one morning, obviously intended to be conciliatory; but since then he’s been able to think of little else. Adil hasn’t noticed: Toby’s been working twelve-hour days since the raids on Merseyside last week, and on the rare evenings they’ve seen each other, it’s all they can do to pull off their clothes and fall, exhausted, into bed.

The bedclothes are thick, and he folds back his side of them to poke his feet out to the air. Adil stirs beside him. Toby watches his eyelids flutter, as though he is in the dozy, half-conscious state when one must decide whether to surface or to sink back down. The muscles of his face tauten slightly as he stirs again.

Toby slips his feet back beneath the bedclothes. Although he sometimes grumbles when the alarm rings, he always rouses himself, pulling Adil down for one final, sleep-slackened kiss before he leaves. But his chest constricts again at the thought of facing him this morning; of pretending everything is alright. He rolls over quietly and closes his eyes. When the alarm does ring, perhaps only a minute later, he concentrates on mimicking deep, sleep-steady breaths.

Adil shifts behind him, and Toby feels the bedclothes wrinkle as he stretches out. He winces at the sound of clicking bone. There is the faint, irregular hum of engines from outside the window, the rattle of motorcars, the occasional jangle of a bus. It is still too early for the bulk of the traffic, though in two hours’ time, when Toby walks to work, taxis will bunch and cluster on the roads, the heat rising in a haze from the pavements.

There is a rush of cool air as Adil pushes the bedclothes back. The mattress dips and rises as he stands, and Toby keeps his eyes shut tightly as bare feet pad across the carpet to the bathroom. The lavatory flushes, then there is the sound of running water. The click of the door opening, then more bare feet on carpet, and the rustle of clothes. The bathroom door closes again. There is silence for several minutes, before the clatter of metal on porcelain, and Toby realises he must be shaving. He daren’t turn over to check the time, but he supposes it must be getting on for quarter to six.

The mattress dips again, and there is the creak of laces as Adil ties his shoes. Toby has curled into a ball without quite realising it, and his shoulders hunch tighter as he feels Adil stand, his footsteps a little heavier now. The light shifts in front of his eyelids, and he can sense Adil standing close to him. He has no idea whether he’s doing a convincing job, but Adil does not speak; the light shifts again, and then there is a hand, exceptionally gentle, resting on his hair. It disappears almost immediately, as though his head was simply the landing-stage for a weary insect. He senses Adil turn away. There is the scrape of the key in the lock – thunderous in the silence of the room – and the squeak of hinges as the bedroom door is opened and closed.

Toby waits for several minutes before uncurling, just to be certain. The clock reads ten to six. He still has forty minutes before he needs to get up, and over an hour before he is due at breakfast; but the room has already grown over-warm, the backs of his knees sticky with sweat, and reluctantly he hauls himself out of bed, slipping his dressing gown over his nakedness as he moves to the window.

The sunlight is glaring, and Toby squints as he slides the window up. Wisps of cloud hover like foam, the pale sky bleached as linen. The air is perfectly, oppressively still. Was it the same this time last year? He supposes he wouldn’t know; this time last year, at six o’clock in the morning, he would have been asleep. And most certainly not naked.

There is a guttering noise, like a smoker’s cough, and he looks down to see a Bentley convertible, black and cream, crawl to a halt in front of the hotel, hiccupping soot. He turns away. Why can’t anyone remember that check-in doesn’t open until midday?

He bathes quickly, leaving the door open so he can listen to the six o’clock news on the wireless. The bulletin is short – there had been no raids last night, for the moon had been a mere sliver, suspended high above the borough of Holborn as though dangled there on fishing-wire – and Toby tries to relax into the cool water.

He is often already at work before his mother rises, but today she is sat at the family table when he enters the dining room. The two empty places feel unusually conspicuous.

“You’re up early,” he says as he sits opposite her. She smiles, thin-lipped.

“I had rather a lot on my mind.”

Toby is silent. It is callous, for he can tell she wants to speak about it, but Freddie has always been better than him at this sort of thing.

“Tea?” he says, and pours her a cup without waiting for a reply. They eat quietly, the dog panting and whining beneath the table. Toby drinks two cups of coffee, black, and though he makes a show of spreading marmalade on his toast, he does not bring a single bite to his mouth. His mother’s cheeks pinch at the sharpness of her grapefruit.

“And what will you be doing today?” she says, as though continuing an ongoing conversation. “Anything exciting?”

“Logging stats, mostly.” He has begun to slice the toast into fine strips. “We’re still working on the figures from Merseyside.”

“You are happy there, aren’t you, darling?”

Toby looks up from his plate. There is a line of tension on his mother’s brow.

“Of course,” he says.

“Only I do worry about you. Working so late. Starting so early. You’re looking pale.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night. The heat…”

She gives another smile, rigidly sympathetic. He glances at his wristwatch.

“I’d better dash, I’m afraid,” he says. He drains his cup and pushes back his chair.

“Will you be back for dinner?”

Her voice is casual, but there is another line of tension on her forehead now.

“I promise,” he says, and then, after a slight hesitation, “Have a good day.”

“Remember your handkerchief, darling. The man on the wireless said the pollen count would be exceptionally high today.”

He kisses her cheek quickly, and walks out of the dining room without looking back.

***

The clouds have quite melted when he slips out of the front doors, and he can almost taste the pollen on his tongue as he walks along Victoria Embankment. The surface of the Thames is glassy, a channel of spilt ink, undisturbed by wind. His eyes water and itch like the devil by the time he reaches Whitehall. He is scrubbing at them fiercely with his handkerchief on the landing of the second floor, when something solid knocks into his shoulder from behind.

“Things can’t be _that_ bad, Hamilton,” Thompson says cheerfully. He walks backwards along the corridor, laden with files. “You look worse than the C.O. after the Christmas party.”

Toby jogs forward to open the office door. Thompson smiles serenely at him as he passes through. Their office is airless as a crypt, and already sweltering; Toby can feel his shirt beginning to stick to his back. York, Cunningham and Jones are already there, jackets slung over the backs of their chairs, ties loosened. Cunningham has rolled up his sleeves, and the veiny, glistening muscles of his sportsman’s forearms are pulled taut as he stretches.

“Don’t say a word to Hamilton,” Thompson announces, before Toby can open his mouth to say good morning. “He’s inconsolable. I walked past him blubbing on the stairs.”

“It’s hay fever,” Toby snaps. He bangs his briefcase down on his desk with rather more force than necessary, and a stack of papers quivers threateningly.

“You look like hell,” Jones says bluntly. “It’s not catching, is it?”

“You can’t catch hay fever, you ass.”

“I was making a _joke_ , Cunningham.”

“I wouldn’t try again, if I were you. You might strain something.”

York snorts, which turns swiftly into a cough as Jones glares at him.

“I hope you have a spare pair of those glasses, Thompson, because you’re going to need them after I’ve finished with you.”

“I wouldn’t advise that, Mr Jones,” Miss Edwards says, exercising her usual habit of appearing unexpectedly in the doorway. There is a great scraping of chairs as they leap up from sitting on their desks, yanking their ties straight. Thompson’s hand jumps to his hair. “Unless you’d like me to cancel your day off on Friday.”

Thompson grins triumphantly across the room.

“And you, Mr Thompson, will be put on the fire-watch for the rest of this week if I hear you bellowing down the corridor again. This is not a clubhouse.”

Thompson flutters his eyelashes. “I’ll spend the rest of the _war_ on the fire-watch, Miss Edwards, as long as it’s with you.”

Cunningham makes retching noises, and Toby would have smiled, if he hadn’t been overtaken by a violent sneeze.

“Hay fever, Mr Hamilton?” Miss Edwards says sympathetically. “The pollen count is exceptionally high today.”

“So I’ve been told,” Toby says thickly from beneath his handkerchief.

“It’s all a ruse, Miss Edwards,” Thompson says furtively. “He’s actually in a state of tremendous emotional distress.”

“Has something happened, Hamilton?” York asks from the desk beside him. He is the quietest of the five boys, quieter even than Toby himself, with sandy hair and kind, anxious eyes. “Bad news?”

“It really is just hay fever.” Toby looks pointedly at Miss Edwards. “I thought I’d finish the Merseyside reports today, unless there’s anything else you’d rather I see to?”

Miss Edwards looks relieved to be back to business. “No, do carry on, Mr Hamilton. Mr Thompson, Mr Cunningham, if you could proof yesterday’s reports please, then take them next door for filing. Mr Jones, Mr York, how are the Greenock reports coming along?”

“Should have them finished by lunchtime. Just waiting on the final casualty figures.”

For the next two hours, the office is quiet except for the clang of typewriters, the rustle of paper, the metallic crinkle of cigarette lighters. York moves to sit with Jones at the front of the room, and they speak occasionally in low voices, their heads bent together like a pair of gossips. Thompson and Cunningham are silent as they read. Toby’s eyes have calmed now he is inside, but the heat makes the reddened skin of his nose feel dry and itchy. He tries not to sniff. He makes good progress with the reports, his pen scratching fluently as he summarises the damage caused to municipal buildings in St Helens. His work can be bleak, transforming names and faces into computable numbers, and when, after exceptionally heavy raids, he’s drafted in to help process the casualty lists, the ages of the victims – or the number of times the same surname appears – can leave him light-headed. They’re losing an entire generation on the battlefields; but they’re losing entire bloodlines here at home.

But the most distressing sections of the Merseyside reports have already been completed, and today, it is easy to remain detached. Toby types out coordinates, checks the mathematics, and though the work is simple, it requires his concentration. After several false starts, he puts his standing calendar face-down on the desk; then, with a growl in the back of his throat, he thrusts it into the top drawer. When he lights his first cigarette of the day, he tries not to remember who introduced him to the brand.

Now that their working day begins at eight, the elevenses are brought round at half-past ten, with lunch at one. The trolley starts on the top floor, where their C.O. and other senior officers work, so by the time it trundles into Toby’s office, most of the best cakes have been claimed. His stomach is rumbling from lack of breakfast, and he nibbles at a stale scone as Thompson and Cunningham squabble over the final Bakewell slice.

The trolley is creaking its way back into the corridor when Toby’s telephone rings. Direct calls to their personal lines are rare enough that he abandons the scone, and turns his back to the others gathered at the front of the office.

“Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence. Toby Hamilton speaking.”

“Very official, I must say.”

The voice is tinny, far away, but its owner is unmistakeable.

“Freddie?”

“You could sound a little more enthused.”

Toby glances behind him, but the others are paying him no attention.

“Sorry, I- how did you get this number? Is everything alright?”

“I rang the hotel. I forgot you’d be at the office.” There is a short laugh. “One does lose track of the days out here. Mr Garland and Peggy managed to get me put through.”

“Is everything alright?” Toby asks again.

“Yes, yes, all fine.” Freddie’s voice is still very quiet, and Toby presses the receiver closer to his ear. “This isn’t a bad time, is it?”

“Not at all. We’re on our morning break.”

“Smashing.” There is a beat. “Everything going well?”

“Yes, thanks,” Toby says. There is another, longer beat. “And you?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, all fine here, thank you.”

The line crackles. Something soft suddenly hits the back of Toby’s head; he turns to see his scone in pieces on the floor, and the other boys smothering their laughter behind their hands.

“For Christ’s sake, can’t you see I’m on the bloody ‘phone?” he snaps, but they only laugh harder. He gropes at his hair, searching for crumbs and smears of margarine.

“Everything alright?”

“Yes, sorry. Just Thompson being an idiot.”

“How did you know it was me?” a voice squawks from behind him, amidst fresh laughter.

“Is this important?” Toby asks. It comes out far ruder than he’d intended. “Because if it can wait until tonight then the telephone at home would-”

“No, no,” Freddie interjects, “No, it’s nothing important. I just- well, I just wanted to see how you are.”

“I’m fine.” He hopes it sounds less defensive on the other end of the line. He hadn’t been certain that Freddie would remember.

“I spoke to Mother,” Freddie says, after a short pause. Toby’s fingers play with the cord of the receiver, twisting it around his thumb. The heaviness has returned, as though his heart has sunk down behind his navel.

“How is she?”

“Oh, you know Mother. She has an uncanny ability to conceal everything, yet be an open book at exactly the same time.” He hesitates. “She said you were quiet this morning.”

“I was tired.” He feels a spark of irritation. “It was too hot to sleep properly last night.”

“She said you didn’t have any breakfast.”

“My hay fever’s started again. I didn’t much feel like eating.”

“Have you, er, thought about it much?”

“Not a bit.” His chest has begun to thump, beating a frantic, irregular rhythm. “I only remembered when I got to work and saw the calendar.”

“You never were a good liar, you know,” Freddie says. He sounds almost affectionate.

“You know damn all about it!” Toby explodes. Silence falls abruptly behind him. “It’s just a date,” he continues shortly, lowering his voice. “A number on a calendar. It doesn’t _mean_ anything.”

“It’s alright to be upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

“ _I_ ’ve been thinking about it.”

“And are _you_ upset?”

Another hesitation. “Not exactly.”

“Well, there you are, then.” The room is still suspiciously quiet behind him. “We’re both fine. Mother’s fine. There’s nothing to get twitchy about.”

“Yes, but- look, it’s rather different for you, isn’t it? At least I thought it might be.”

Toby almost bites through his tongue. “Is it?”

The line crackles again as Freddie exhales. “Would you rather do this later? I can ‘phone tonight. I don’t want to upset you at work. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

He sounds so sincere, so unusually brotherly, that Toby feels a flicker of shame at his rudeness. “I don’t mean to be short with you,” he says. “It was kind of you to ‘phone. And I’m glad you’re alright.”

“You know you can speak to me, or to Mother. We both understand. We’re both going through it. Don’t bottle everything up.”

Toby pulls the telephone cord tight, and the tip of his thumb flares white and bloodless.

“I know. I won’t. Thank you. And you can speak to me too. You know, if- if you need to.”

“Thank you.” There is the sound of another voice at Freddie’s end of the line. “I have to go, I’m afraid,” he says, and he sounds genuinely regretful. “You know where I am.”

“Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Take care.”

The call disconnects. Toby releases the cord, and his thumb tingles and flushes as blood rushes back to the tip. He replaces the receiver. The conversation has started up again behind him, but he remains at his desk. He wipes his brow with his handkerchief. He really had been rather rude, but it was so _like_ Freddie to push in with some semblance of regard, quite out of the blue, at the most inconvenient moment. And what the devil had he meant, ‘it’s rather different for you’? Did he mean that Toby has _more_ right to- or that, of the three of them, because he is the only one without a title-

“Everything alright, Hamilton?” asks York. Toby turns to see him crumbling his shortbread anxiously between his fingers.

“Yes, thank you.” He swallows the flash of anger. “Just my brother clucking at me.”

The others have broken off their conversation again. There is a rather strained pause.

“Now, if I didn’t know better, Hamilton, I’d said you’d just been given the old heave-ho,” Thompson says, in a clear attempt to lighten the mood. “If it’s love advice you’re after-”

“ – Then he won’t be coming to you,” Cunningham interjects, taking up the baton. “If I was Miss Edwards, I’d have caved your head in by now. Just ask her to the pictures and have done with it.”

“It isn’t that simple.” Thompson speaks with the air of one explaining something very simple to someone very dim. “One has to take one’s time with these things.”

“Take any more time and the war will be over.”

“Cunningham, _you_ might get women by blundering in, waving those huge arms in the air, grinning like a simpleton; but _this_ matter requires finesse.”

“What do you think, Hamilton?”

All four boys look at him expectantly. Their smiles are a little too wide.

“I’m not sure I’m qualified to say,” Toby says, with some effort.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Thompson says brightly. “If you were a girl, what would make you want to step out with me?”

“You might have better success with this enterprise if you asked an actual girl.”

“Yes, but in the _absence_ of one-” Thompson peers about the room pointedly- “I’m asking you.”

“Why?” Toby demands, and winces; even to his own ears, it had sounded far, far too defensive. He remembers, dimly, an instruction whispered to him across the bar: _don’t overcompensate_.

“I’ve just _said_ why. Cunningham isn’t being in the least helpful, so in the absence of a real girl-”

“No, why are you asking me? Why not Jones or York?”

Thompson blinks. “We’re just having a conversation, Hamilton,” he says, with a short, bemused laugh. “No need to make a fuss.”

The others laugh too, uneasily. Toby does not at all like the way they are looking at him, perplexed, a little wary, perhaps even suspicious, a censuring bank at the front of the room, blocking the exit; and perhaps on some level it’s his paranoia, and hunger, and dehydration, and lack of sleep, and the headache building, needle-sharp, behind his eyes; and yet there is still the heaviness and the tightness and the thump thump thump of his chest, and his insides feel as though they are being squeezed through a minute, unforgiving tube; and their faces are beginning to morph together now, into one huge expression of perplexed, wary suspicion, and there is something threatening in it, in that single, vast expression, something vicious in the angry line of the mouth, the uncompromising set of the jaw, the cruel narrowing of the eyes; and now that faint, terrible ringing of voices has begun in his head, the ones he might hear when he drinks too much, or during a solitary walk home, or on the nights Adil cannot be with him –

_You know you had this coming. Bloody well been asking for it. So don’t start making a fuss._

– And he flinches involuntarily, his handkerchief clutched in a tight ball in his fist.

“I’m not making a fuss,” he says, through gritted teeth. “I just- I simply wondered why-”

His throat has begun to close up. He shakes his head, frantically, to clear it-

“Bloody hell, Hamilton,” Thompson is saying, and a little of the amusement has slipped from his voice. He glances at the others. “Don’t get yourself in a state.”

_Look at the state of you. You’re a bloody disgrace._

“I’m not in a state.” Toby’s voice is rising, to drown out those in his head.

“Leave him be, Thompson,” Jones says. He is looking at Toby with a strange expression.

“I’m not doing anything to him!”

_I’m not doing anything you haven’t earned._

“I only asked him a question-”

_I believe I asked you a question._

“I think if you’re going to smack _anyone_ this morning, Jones, it had better be Hamilton; might knock some sense into him-”

Toby doesn’t remember what he said; indeed, whether he said anything at all. He simply remembers flying across the office, the other boys blurring into streaks of grey and navy and white, seizing Thompson by the scruff of the neck, and shaking him so hard that his glasses are jolted from his nose. Blood is roaring in his ears. Thompson is four inches taller than him, and it is too easy to imagine he is shaking someone entirely different, another someone who was also exactly four inches taller than him, the someone he hasn’t been able to keep from his mind since he woke up this morning; and now expletives rush from his mouth, like a litany, his grip tightening-

Then there are hands on him, strong and rough, and he is pulled violently backwards. Thompson’s shirt slips from between his fingers. He staggers, almost losing his balance; he clutches at the closest desk, his chest rising and falling in quick, rapid bursts.

All four of them are staring at him. Thompson is red in the face, his shirt creased and crumpled as he puffs like a bowled-out batsman, but he looks otherwise unharmed.

“Bloody hell,” he says. His face looks strangely naked without his glasses. “Bloody _hell_ , Hamilton.”

“I’m sorry.” Toby’s hand trembles as he pushes his fringe out of his eyes. “I- are you hurt?”

Thompson prods gingerly at his neck. “I’ll live,” he says grimly. “Though I can’t promise _you_ will if there’s so much as a scratch on my glasses.”

“Here,” York says quickly, holding them out. His face has drained of colour. “They look alright to me.”

Toby stares straight ahead, hiding his shaking hands in his trouser pockets as Thompson inspects his glasses. He feels the others’ eyes on him, on the alert, as though he is spooked horse which, not knowing its own strength, may be about to bolt.

“Lucky escape,” Thompson says finally. He polishes the lenses on his sleeve, then slips the glasses back onto his nose. “Now,” he says, suddenly brisk, “I don’t want to get bludgeoned, but are you going to tell us what the devil that was all about?”

“I’m sorry,” Toby says again, helplessly.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Stand down, Thompson, for Christ’s sake.” Jones is looking at Toby with that strange expression again, and he realises with a jolt that it is concern. “Has something happened, Hamilton?” he asks gently. “Your brother-?”

“No. No, he’s fine.”

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Cunningham says. He looks utterly out of his depth, like a grizzly bear come face to face with an injured deer.

“Nothing’s happened, really. It’s just- today is-”

Toby thinks of the calendar in the top drawer of his desk; of the twisting, roiling heaviness he had woken up with this morning, and which still weighs upon him now. The necessary words are in his head, but his mouth can’t seem to shape them.

“Everything’s getting on top of me, I think,” he says, his nerve failing him. “With the reports and all these damn raids, and my mother’s on at me all the time for being late home…” He trails off. It was all true, even if it wasn’t why. “I’m sorry, Guy,” he says, and everyone jumps slightly at the sound of a Christian name. “That behaviour was unforgivable. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to-”

“Oh, don’t be such a stuffed shirt,” Thompson says, though he still looks rather on edge. “You could’ve done far more damage if you’d wanted to, I’m sure. And _I_ ’m sorry,” he continues, somewhat clumsily, squinting at Toby through his glasses. “I know I sometimes go too far but- well, it was just ribbing, you know, because you seemed so glum-”

“I know,” Toby says. “Please, don’t apologise. And if I _was_ a girl,” he adds, after a beat, “I’d tell you to be straight with her. Make it clear you aren’t just playing the fool.”

A short, tense silence.

“Thank you,” Thompson says, with visible effort. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Toby is drenched in sweat. His shirt has come untucked, and he can feel his hair breaking free of its slick. He excuses himself, and walks as quickly as he dares towards the door, the others still grouped around Thompson on the opposite side of the office.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” he hears Cunningham whisper, as the door clicks shut behind him.

***

At ten to one, Miss Edwards arrives to collect their completed work. The air, already thick with heat, is now heavy with tension, and she regards their silent forms, hunched over their typewriters, with trepidation.

“How are we getting on in here?” she asks. There is a moment before anyone speaks.

“The Greenock report is done,” Jones says eventually. His voice sounds a little strained.

“Excellent. Mr Thompson? Mr Cunningham?”

“We only found a few errors in these,” Thompson says. He doesn’t smile at her. “We took the pages downstairs to be retyped. We’ll check them again after lunch. Everything else has been taken next door for filing.”

Miss Edwards looks as though she is waiting for someone to shout ‘Surprise!’, and for the office to descend into its usual chaos. When no-one does, and it does not, she turns to Toby.

“Mr Hamilton?”

Toby concentrates on screwing the lid back onto his fountain pen. “All done,” he says. He gathers the pages of the report together, shuffling them inside a file. He walks to the front of the office, eyes on the floorboards, and hands the file to Miss Edwards without looking at her. She takes it from him, and he returns immediately to his desk. The silence stretches as they sit, subdued, in front of her.

“Well,” she says, struggling, “Good work, gentlemen. The C.O. will be pleased. I’ll be back after lunch with the afternoon’s tasks. Mr Hamilton, did you mention something about needing to leave early?”

Reluctantly, Toby raises his eyes. The others are resolutely not looking at him.

“If I could leave by seven,” he says. “My, er- mother wants me back for dinner.”

Yesterday, that would have raised catcalls, and he’d have been ragged by Thompson for the entire lunch-hour. But today no-one says anything at all. Miss Edwards looks at them in astonishment.

“What _has_ got into you all today?” She waits, but everyone seems determined to interpret the question as rhetorical; after a moment, she makes an impatient noise and takes a firmer grip on the files. “See you sort yourselves out by this afternoon,” she says severely.

They usually take a table for themselves in the canteen, but today Jones steers them to sit with the chaps from the office next door. All ten of them cram around a table, and with much jostling of elbows and kicked shins, the mood begins to pick up. Thompson, perhaps enlivened by the new audience, is back on top form, bouncing off Cunningham, needling Jones, gently ribbing York; and he makes a determined, strangely touching effort to include Toby, though any jabs are clearly token, so much so that Toby burns with embarrassment. They must all think he’s incapable of taking a joke. He can count the number of times he’s lost control like that on one hand, and on any other day, he would’ve kept himself in check; probably wouldn’t have misinterpreted Thompson in the first place. Quite pathetic, really, a grown man bawling and brawling as though he were in the playground.

_Pathetic._

He gulps down his water. Thinks how lucky it is that he didn’t do any real damage.

The buoyant mood doesn’t entirely evaporate when lunch ends, but the office remains far quieter than usual. The afternoon stretches bleakly, each hour hotter and stickier and lengthier than the last, until by quarter to seven, Toby’s nerves are so jangled that he jumps a foot in the air when York slams his desk drawer.

“You off, Hamilton?” Thompson asks, when he begins to pack his briefcase.

“Yes,” Toby says, and cannot think of a single other thing to say. It occurs to him, for the first time since starting at Whitehall, that he is the youngest but one in the office. A little desperately, he adds, “I hope you won’t be too late tonight.”

Thompson stretches his arms above his head, cracking his shoulders. “Miss Edwards will let us go at eight,” he says confidently. “She’ll sneak us out the back door if she has to.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it.” Cunningham barely glances up from his typewriter. “She’d lock you in here overnight if she could, Thompson.”

“As long as she locked herself in with me.”

“See you tomorrow, Hamilton,” Jones says. He is wearing that strange, concerned expression again.

“Goodnight, Hamilton,” York says.

“Goodnight, everyone.” He hesitates, hand on the doorknob. “And… look, I really-”

“Don’t,” Thompson says brusquely. He has returned to his typewriter. “Don’t start twittering on about it again. What’s done is done, nobody died, so let’s leave it at that.” He reaches the end of his sentence and looks up. “On your bike, then. Don’t want to keep _Mother_ waiting.”

He smiles, eyes dancing behind his glasses. Toby smiles back, sincerely.

***

Outside, the air is dense with midges. Heat belches from exhaust pipes, light bouncing off windscreens into his eyes. Since petrol rationing, it has become almost as difficult to find a taxi at this hour as it has to find an identifiable cut of meat in the canteen; as the thought of walking is unbearable, he decides to take the Tube. The pollen is rising, clinging to him in the evening haze like burrs, and though it is only five minutes to Charing Cross, his eyes have begun to stream again as he waits on the platform. He sneezes once, twice, the skin enflamed by his handkerchief. Every inch of him crawls with sweat.

It is one stop on the Northern Line to Leicester Square, then two stops on the Piccadilly to Holborn. The carriages are relatively empty, and Toby can sniff without causing offence. He replays his altercation with Thompson in his head, for perhaps the fiftieth time. He looks down at his hands. His ring glimmers dully in the artificial light.

He arrives at the hotel at twenty-past seven.

“Good evening, Mr Hamilton,” Mr Garland says as he enters the lobby. He is, predictably, wearing a black tie and a grave expression. If he has any opinions about Toby’s rather dishevelled appearance, he keeps them from his tone. “Your mother will be pleased to see you.”

“Has she come down?”

“Not yet. She intends to dine at eight.”

“I’ll head straight up and change. I’ll just pop into the bar for some water.”

It isn’t entirely appropriate, entering the bar at this hour _sans_ _robe de soirée_ , but he shoots off before Mr Garland can protest. Adil – neat, smooth lines, efficient movements, jacket dazzlingly white – is a balm for his sore eyes.

“Could I get a glass of water? I’m gasping.”

“How was your day, sir?” Adil’s smile is wide but polite. They are surrounded by guests, and Toby reins himself in with an impatient swipe at his fringe.

“Eventful.”

Adil’s eyebrows twitch with interest, but he has handed Toby his water, and for several seconds there is simply the sound of gulping.

“Neat gin, is that, Toby?” Mr O’Hara calls from the other end of the bar.

“I wish,” Toby mutters. He rolls the glass, wet with condensation, across his forehead. “How are you?”

“Very warm, sir.”

Adil is trying to mix a Martini, take another guest’s order, and speak with Toby at the same time. He looks hot and bothered, harried even; Toby decides his troubles can wait.

“Don’t work yourself too hard,” he says, then adds, in a whisper, “When do you finish?”

Adil lifts the cocktail shaker in front of his face. He mouths ‘ten’. Toby raises a questioning brow, and Adil nods.

“Thank you for the water, Mr Joshi,” Toby says, and puts the glass back on the bar.

He bathes again – water restrictions be damned, he doesn’t want his mother to _smell_ him coming – and pulls on a clean shirt. Re-slicking his hair before the bathroom mirror, he wrinkles his nose at his reflection. He looks ill, his skin white like sickness, and blotchy with dead, raw-red skin about his nostrils. His eyes have swollen into slits, the whites veined and bloodshot. The skin is scaly at the corners. He fears he looks rather like a lizard with a head-cold.

The lift is a furnace, the metal rails warm to the touch. He is jostled by other, over-hot bodies, and a lady regards him with distaste when he sneezes. He holds his dinner jacket over his arm until the last possible moment, shrugging it on only as the lift doors slide open onto the lobby.

Lady Hamilton is already seated when he enters the dining room.

“Look at you,” she says. She reaches out to pull his bow-tie straight.

He slips into the seat opposite her. “How are you?”

“I visited the National Gallery this morning,” she says, which is not quite an answer. “There’s a new exhibition of work from the Great War. As though they’re warning us not to feel too optimistic.”

She raises her hand, and the wine waiter moves forward to pour the rosé for the entrée.

“How was it?”

“Rather affecting, actually. Though I can’t bear this obsession with Modernism. You know, one painting was simply a black square. Nothing else, just an enormous black square. Absurd.”

“I didn’t know we had any Malevich in London.”

Lady Hamilton sniffs. “Well, you haven’t missed anything. An utter waste of canvas.”

They discuss the paintings for the entire first course. Toby is content to let her talk at him, give her opinions; he has always been particularly taken with Paul Nash, and she describes his _We are Making a New World_ with unexpected insight.

“We could go together, if you like,” she says, as they wait for the main course. She is polishing the prongs of her fork, not looking at him. “One Sunday, after church. I wouldn’t object to another visit.”

“I’d like that,” Toby says. He’d like to take Adil too, if he can get the time off; they could go late on a Saturday, just before closing, when it wouldn’t be busy; or perhaps the busy hours would be safest, so they could blend in with the crowd-

“Your father fought in the Great War.”

Toby pauses, his wine glass halfway to his lips. Lady Hamilton has replaced the fork, picked up a knife. He wets his lips, opens his mouth with no idea of what he might say.

“It would put a strain on any marriage.” Her voice is brisk, almost curt.

Toby puts down his glass. “I’m sure,” he says. It comes out horribly expressionless.

“When I found out I was having you boys…” She is holding the knife tightly, the napkin moving in short, jerky strokes across the blade. “It was frightening. Not knowing whether he was going to come back. I was still a child myself; I was your age.”

“I’m not a child,” Toby says gently.

Her lips purse; it could almost be a slight smile. “Not these days, you aren’t. But we grew up so much later when I was young – the girls, particularly. There wasn’t any lipstick or smoking or gadding about town. We really didn’t know anything about life. The War changed everything; even for the girls whose husbands _did_ come back.”

The waiter pours the red wine. He returns with the next course: white plates unpatriotically piled with roast beef, the cuts pink in the centre, glistening with gravy.

“Do you miss him?” Toby asks, with great effort, once the waiter has stepped away.

Lady Hamilton spoons broccoli onto his plate. She is silent for so long that he thinks she is going to ignore the question altogether.

“I miss that glorious summer of 1913, when we married, and everyone said war was impossible.” The serving spoon scrapes across the bottom of the dish. “I miss who he was before Jutland.”

She lifts her head. She looks tired; far too tired for a woman of her age and class.

“Did Freddie catch you?”

Her change of tone is abrupt. She begins to slice her carrots.

“Yes,” Toby says. His mouth is very dry. “This morning. It was kind of him to ‘phone.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the course. The beef is perfectly done, but he feels as though he is chewing leather. He reaches his third glass of red before his mother has finished her first. He has no memories of his father during the War; he and Freddie had been little older than eighteen months when it had ended. But they’d known about Jutland, growing up, though only as an oblique, abstract term for something Not Very Nice Which Happened to Daddy. They’d seen his medals at the annual Armistice Dinner; Toby had even taken a beating from the belt of the Ceremonial uniform. Baronetcy or no, witnessing the drowning of almost ten thousand men could hardly leave one – unaltered. Now, he isn’t sure whether it changes anything; whether it should.

“He loved you very much,” Lady Hamilton says, once the waiter has poured the white wine. Her tones are clipped.

Toby looks up sharply. “Don’t insult me.”

“He was never very good at showing it. He was never taught how to.”

“And neither was I.” Toby’s dessert spoon falls with a clatter onto his plate. “Once Freddie and I had gone up to prep school we saw you three, four times a year? Flying visits in the school holidays. Postcards from the Riviera-”

“The Riviera, Toby, really; don’t be absurd-”

“I didn’t have _anyone_. It’s a wonder I can still-” He breaks off; he had been about to say too much. “You know what he was. You know what he did. All those hateful things he said-”

“Darling, I’m not making excuses for him; only that, in his heart, he didn’t mean-”

“The last thing he ever said to me was that I was pathetic. Here. In this very room. Sat where you are now. A year ago today.”

Toby’s hands are shaking so badly that he cannot pick up his wine glass. His voice has risen, and the people on the tables closest to them have begun to glance over.

“I know it wasn’t jolly hockey-sticks for you either. And I know this day is hard for you, and for Freddie. But don’t expect me to sit here blubbing because the man who made me afraid to come downstairs in my own home has been dead for twelve months. That doesn’t mean anything to me. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make forgiving him any easier to achieve.”

Lady Hamilton reaches across the table, curls her fingers over his clenched fist.

“I don’t want you to go through life thinking that he didn’t care. Because he did.”

Toby wrenches his hand back. More and more tables have begun to look over. He stands, throwing his napkin down beside his plate.

“You can think what you like. I couldn’t give a damn. And you can be sure that if he’s looking up at us, he sure as hell won’t give a damn either.”

Emma is supervising the dinner service, and her wide eyes follow him out of the door and into the lobby. He takes the stairs two at a time; he is out of breath by the time he reaches the third floor. He slams the door of his suite behind him, yanking his arms out of his dinner jacket and throwing it in the direction of a chair. He wrenches a record at random from the bookcase, almost tearing the paper sleeve, and twists the volume dial of the gramophone as high as it can go. Benny Goodman’s _Sing Me A Swing Song_ comes shrieking through the horn. He looks at the clock: nine-thirty. He is already an hour late for the blackout. He rams the boards in place in front of the window, so hard that the panes rattle, and snaps off every light except the bedside lamp, throwing the corners of the room into shadow. He kicks off his shoes; one flies across the room to leave a small black scuff-mark on the skirting. He sinks onto the edge of the bed, his back to the door. His head drops into his hands.

He is still sitting there, half an hour later, when there is a soft knock at the door. The record has finished, and though he doesn’t speak, it is pushed open anyway. The lock clicks, then the mattress dips as someone sits beside him. Cool, slightly damp fingers stroke across the sliver of exposed skin between his hair and the collar of his shirt.

“What happened?”

“How do you know something happened?” he mutters dully, without looking up.

“Because Tom was in the dining room, and he told Sonny, who told Betsey and-”

“And so the entire staff knows.” With the blackout boards in front of the window, muffling the rumblings of the road, the room is very quiet. “How was your shift?”

“Hot. Tom and I hid in the ice-house for a bit to cool off. How’s your hay fever? The wireless man said the pollen count was exceptionally high.”

“I’m rather scaly at the moment, I’m afraid. I won’t be offended if you keep your distance.”

There is a slight tug on the hair at the nape of his neck.

“What happened?” Adil asks again. “Did your mother upset you?”

Toby straightens up. He is in dire need of a cigarette. “It doesn’t matter.”

“One day,” Adil says, reaching up to undo Toby’s bow-tie, “You won’t put up a fight when I try to help you.” His fingers work at the stiff button of his collar, as though unpicking a stitch. “Now, why don’t you save us both an hour of brooding and come out with it?”

“I could have you sacked for that.”

“Not a bad idea. Then you could brood in peace.” Hands cup his jaw, raising his eye-line. “Is it me? I know you weren’t really asleep this morning.”

“How did you-?”

“Your eyelids were fluttering. And you flinched when I touched you.”

Toby flushes. “Sorry. It isn’t you, I promise.”

“Then what?”

Toby looks at him properly. His eyes are bloodshot, the lids raw; he looks exhausted. But he is smiling, his thin face soft and kind. His skin glows in the light of the lamp.

The kiss, though gentle, seems to take him by surprise. It is a moment before he returns it, but then his arms are around Toby’s waist, pulling him closer. Perhaps it is the heat which accelerates them, for almost immediately they begin to fumble with buttons, cufflinks, until their shirts flutter to the floor. Toby’s nails are overlong, and they leave tiny indents in the back of Adil’s neck. Adil’s hands move to his hips; fingers hook into belt loops, and Toby feels himself being pulled forwards, over and on top of Adil. He falls clumsily, almost cracking their foreheads together, but then Adil is flat on his back, and Toby has his knees braced on either side. Their wrists knock together as they scrabble at the other’s belt.

“Shoes,” Toby gasps, shuffling back. “Bloody shoes – off.”

Adil sits up, yanks at his laces, and Toby throws his shoes from the bed. Now they can remove their trousers properly; he throws those too, and their underwear, until there is nothing but warm air on their flesh. They are both a little damp with sweat, yet the hairs on Toby’s arms are standing at attention. He dives back in, pushing Adil flat again, clutching at his bony shoulders.

“What – do you want?”

“Are you – sure? We – can talk –”

“Later. Now what – do you want?”

“Don’t mind. Ah – anything.”

Toby kisses him again. Minutes pass, feverishly quick. A burst of euphoria, as intense and brief and frightening as an electric shock, rattles in his chest. Adil wants him. Adil knows everything about his father, and he still wants him. He doesn’t think he’s pathetic. It seems miraculous, and, in moments like now, Toby could worship him.

“I don’t want to rush you,” Adil says eventually, catching Toby’s hips, “But I might…”

“Christ- yes. Sorry.” Toby reaches over, inelegantly, to scrabble in the drawer of the bedside table. “Should I put the wireless on?”

“You’ve missed the cricket scores, I’m afraid.” Toby glares at him, and he smiles innocently. “I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

“But next door-”

“Won’t hear a thing.” He grips Toby’s thighs. “You’re not getting off this bed.”

Something jumps in Toby’s chest. It isn’t solely the spark he feels when Adil gives him an order (a phenomenon which has long been relegated to the list of items he is too afraid to psychoanalyse). Tonight, it is joined by something sharper, like the point of a penknife pressed between the grooves of his ribs, in spite – or perhaps because – of the euphoria. Adrenaline pulses hot like fever, and it is not unlike that which scorched him, aged thirteen, eighteen, twenty-three, as he waited outside his father’s study, mentally scanning the Book of Proverbs for courage: _Blows that wound cleanse away evil_. He realises, with devastating clarity, that he cannot afford Adil the control tonight; cannot be pliant and surrendering and vulnerable beneath him. It would feel too much like subjugation. To lie beneath Adil tonight, however gentle his words, however loving his touches, would feel like a punishment, for perhaps the only receipt as intimate as love is that of pain. His craving of an irrevocable equality with this man, with whom he has shared so much of himself, struggles against a soul-deep urge to please him which sends him frantic, half with desire, half with something like panic. The war of impulses is, momentarily, paralysing.

"Can I stay-?” He gestures tightly at their positions; Adil is still on his back. 

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

He has dropped the little jar from the bedside table somewhere; his body twists as he searches for it. Adil’s thighs flex beneath him, as though he is about to sit up.

“Toby, are you-?”

“Tell me.” He fights to keep his voice even. “Tell me what you want. How you want me to do it.”

Adil blinks. “I’ll like whatever you do, Toby. I always do.”

Toby spots the jar, abandoned at the edge of the bed. He turns it in his hands. “No, no, I need- I need you. I need _you_.”

“I’m right here, darling.”

“No, I need to get it right.” The lid, uncapped, is tapping against the rim, a rat-tat-tat like a Lewis Gun. “I need you to help me get it right.”

“Would you rather swap-?”

“No, no, I can’t- tonight I-” Toby realises he’s veering dangerously close to derailing the encounter altogether. He kisses Adil. When he speaks again, their faces are so close that he can feel breath on his lips. “I love you.” The truth of it steadies him. “I love you.” The terror recedes a little. “Please tell me what you want. I want to get it right for you.”

Adil’s face, usually so carefully controlled, flickers to betray a trace of what is most likely an almighty internal conflict. Toby begins kissing his neck, brushes of lips reverent, but when Adil’s hand threads into his hair, tugs on it gently, he stills.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes. Yes. Are you?”

“Yes. But we’re talking afterwards.”

“Yes. Anything you want.”

Adil pulls Toby’s head back, and when he leans up, he kisses him hard.

The lid of the jar gets lost amongst the bedclothes. Toby presses tiny kisses to Adil’s bent knees, sucks his little finger into his mouth when it is traced over his lips. Their flesh sparks with heat where it touches. In the end, Adil gives little by way of instruction, simply makes encouraging noises, praising, until Toby’s hands stop shaking. The panic has retreated, pushed back to the shadows by the knowledge that he is clearly bringing pleasure to the man beneath him, and in a way which places him firmly, safely in control. His chest loosens. There is no danger here.

The sheets twist and crease beneath them. The temperature spikes, as though the room is endeavouring to match the warmth of their bodies. They pant, not quite trusting themselves to speak above a whisper; their breathing seems amplified in the absence of the wireless and the buzz of the traffic. The stillness and the quiet press down upon them, pushing Toby on, holding he and Adil together within the same snatched breath.

With a sudden, convulsive movement, Adil seizes Toby’s hand. He presses the back of it to his mouth, teeth scraping across it, and after several seconds, his eyes scrunch shut. It is almost entirely silent, except for a great hitch of breath, and strangely dignified.

Toby slows, falling out of rhythm, wondering whether he ought to stop. But then Adil tells, _orders_ him, breathlessly, to keep going, and it takes little more than a minute for his own vision to white out.

“That has to be the oddest lead-up to lovemaking we’ve ever had,” Adil says, when they have caught their breath.

“You’ll have to log your complaint in writing, sir,” Toby says, flopping down onto his back. “You’ll find our address in any good telephone directory.”

“No complaints.” The air, muggy, flecked with dust motes, crackles between them. Toby feels a finger trail over his ribs. “But you know what you’re doing. You don’t need me to tell you.”

“I know.”

Adil is quiet, and, on pure instinct, Toby feels he might have understood. There are voices in the corridor outside; the clink of change, then a burst of laughter.

“Will your mother come up, do you think?”

“I don’t think so. Christ, I hope not. You’ll have to hide in the bathroom.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Toby rolls onto his side to face him. “Can you stay tonight?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Of course I do.”

“I didn’t know whether you wanted to be on your own.”

Toby clutches at his hand, and feels instantly foolish; but Adil simply links their fingers.

“Talk to me,” he says simply. “What’s happened?”

“You’re tired.”

“Tired of your evasions,” he says, but there is no bite to it. “You know how when I have a problem, or I’m upset, I come straight out with it, instead of making a song and dance of things?”

“I’m not making a song and dance of things!” Toby says, stung. Adil looks at him, implacable. He considers making something up, but they don’t lie to each other, not since the D’Abberville debacle; and in any case, he’s quite hopeless at it. Adil would know.

“It’s stupid,” he says eventually. Adil simply lies there, patiently, and waits. “ _Alright_ ,” he says irritably, as though he is being asked a most inconvenient favour. “Alright, but I did tell you it’s stupid. So. There it is. I warned you.”

He looks down at their linked hands.

“A year ago today, my father died.” He cringes instantly; it sounds like the opening of a speech at a memorial service. He supposes if there hadn’t been a war on, his mother might have organised one. “I hadn’t given it much thought until a week or two ago. Not because I’ve been trying especially hard _not_ to think about it, but because I don’t _care_.”

It comes out, to his annoyance, rather petulant, but it’s important to get that part in early, in case Adil makes the mistake of thinking he’s consumed by grief.

“But since then I haven’t really been able to stop thinking about it. I don’t mean about him; I’d dance on his grave if it wouldn’t get me arrested. Just- what he did, and- and what he said. That’s all.”

He unlinks his fingers from Adil’s, feeling overcrowded despite the strip of white sheet between them. He begins to pick at a hangnail.

“I wasn’t going to mention it, because I didn’t think it was overly important, but when I woke up this morning, it was all going round and round in my head, and I knew I would be short and moody with you – that’s why I pretended to be asleep. Not because of anything _you_ ’ve done.”

He tugs the hangnail free, and there is a prick of pain as he takes a strip of skin with it.

“I thought work would keep my mind off it, and that by this evening, I’d have forgotten all about it. But then Freddie telephoned, which was kind, but I was rude even though I didn’t want to be, because he just can’t _comprehend-_ ” Blood is seeping up from the groove left by the hangnail- “Anyway, then I- well, I sort of attacked Thompson.”

He sucks the blood from his finger. Adil blinks at him.

“You ‘sort of’ attacked Thompson? What do you mean by ‘sort of’?”

“I just sort of- _charged_ at him, I suppose. And shook him.”

“Shook him?”

“Yes. Took hold of his shirt. His glasses went flying.” The blood keeps seeping up; he reaches for his handkerchief. “He’s fine,” he says. “No damage. To him or the glasses. It was awkward as hell for the rest of the day, but he was good about it, they all were. But then this evening, in the dining room, Mother started talking about him – Father, I mean, not Thompson – and about the last war. He was at Jutland – I think I’ve told you that. He lost his ship, and his entire crew bar five men.” The bubble of anger swells again. “I think she thinks that somehow it’s mitigating circumstances. Perhaps it is, I don’t know. And then she said he loved me. That she didn’t want me to go through life thinking he didn’t care.”

His finger is stinging badly. He tosses the stained handkerchief to the carpet.

“Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?” Adil says cautiously. “That’s a nice thing to hear.”

“No, it isn’t, because it’s all bollocks!” Toby stops himself, waits for a set of footsteps to recede down the corridor. “It’s all complete and utter bollocks, Adil. He _didn’t_ love me. He _didn’t_ care. I know that, I’ve accepted it, _it doesn’t bother me_. It doesn’t _matter_. So why does she have to bring it all up again?”

He sits up jerkily, tugging at the edge of the sheet to cover himself.

“She was the reason he hated me, you know. He told me once. Said I was too much like her. Freddie took after him but I, I was like Mother. Damn nuisance of a child. Precocious. Introverted. Insolent. Freddie could never grasp ‘seen but not heard’, but even _seeing_ me was too much for him. And this day- this stupid, bloody day, which doesn’t mean anything and yet everyone expects me to be half-dead with grief… Oh, Christ, I’m sorry,” he says restlessly, though Adil’s expression has not changed, “I don’t mean to be self-pitying. I know we talk about him all the time, and I sound like a scratched record... It’s why I never said anything about today. But, you know, Freddie said something about Mother earlier – something like she manages to hide everything but conceal nothing at the same time – and that’s me, too, I think. I promise, I do try to hide my moods from you, and I don’t _mean_ to fall into them, and I thought I was getting better at it until today-”

“Why are you trying to hide them from me?”

Adil has sat up. His face is thrown in shadow, from the position of the lamp behind him; Toby cannot quite make out his expression.

“Because it’s annoying,” he says blankly. “Isn’t it? Surely? It’s a bother for you.”

“The war is a bother for me. Air-raids are a bother for me. Drunken aristocrats are a bother for me. But you, Toby Hamilton, are not a bother at all.” Adil grips Toby’s sheet-shrouded knee tightly. “You may have been brought up by an automaton – and that’s a polite term for him – but no-one expects you to be one. Least of all me. We’ve all got feelings; there’s no shame in it. It’s human instinct.”

“But you worry so.”

“It worries me more to hear you’ve been trying to hide them from me.”

Toby runs a hand over his face. “Christ, I need a cigarette. Do you want a cigarette?”

Adil shakes his head. He sits cross-legged, uncovered by the sheet, as Toby moves to the wardrobe to rifle through the pockets of his work jacket.

“Do you think Jutland makes a difference?” he asks, once he has returned to sit opposite him. Thin plumes of smoke, fine as wisps of white hair, melt into the air between them.

“How do you mean?”

“Do you think it makes it wrong to hate him? Because of what happened to him at Jutland. Because _that_ – that trauma – is perhaps why he was so angry all the time.”

Adil thinks for a moment. “I think Jutland’s an explanation,” he says slowly, “But not an excuse. What happened to him there was terrible, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, and it very well could be what caused his aggression. But it doesn’t excuse it, Toby. Just because he wasn’t cruel and violent for no reason – it doesn’t make what he did to you any less wrong or upsetting. You have every right to hate him, Jutland or not Jutland.”

Toby swallows. It is testament to how well Adil knows him that he addressed almost all of his fears without being asked. It is several moments before he can speak again.

“Do you think I’m a bad Christian because I haven’t forgiven him yet?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you think-” He takes a long drag, for courage- “Do you think I should be done with it all by now?”

Adil reaches for the cigarette. “Do you mean do I think you should have forgotten it?”

“Not forgotten, exactly. But not thinking about it regularly. Not being angry. Not, you know, attacking colleagues during the working day.”

Adil exhales, and hands the cigarette back. Toby watches a tiny line appear at the corner of his mouth, then fade again.

“How often do you think about it?”

“Not all the time.”

“Estimation?”

“Maybe a few times a week.”

Adil’s face gives nothing away.

“Fleetingly, or for long periods of time?”

“Fleetingly. Usually. Today, Thompson just said a few things which reminded me of things _he_ said. He was only fooling around, he couldn’t have known. But then I thought of things he _did_ , and I suppose I panicked. That’s why I lashed out.” He stubs out the cigarette. He itches to light another. “Things strike me, sometimes, quite out of the blue. I remember things – words, punishments – which I thought I’d forgotten. And Christ, Adil, it makes me burn. To think that even when I was at Oxford, even when you started working here… What you must think of me.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t. I mean it, Toby, you don’t apologise for this. Not ever.”

Toby smiles weakly. “I really _am_ making a song and dance, aren’t I?”

“Of course not. Never. Never about this. Come on, lie down.”

It is past eleven. The lift pings faintly at the end of the corridor, then more footsteps pass the door. Adil takes the lighter from him, and manoeuvres him so they lie side by side again. He slips a hand over his waist, tugging him closer, and Toby concentrates on the feel of it against his back, the press of five warm fingertips into his flesh. It isn’t restraint; he isn’t being held in place. The hand is simply resting on him, rising up and down with the swell and contraction of his ribcage.

“It’s your business, of course,” Adil says, pressing each fingertip down in turn, as though he is fingering piano keys, “But it isn’t a good idea for you to bottle things like this up. It’s going to make you ill. I love you, Toby.” He smiles, a little bashfully. “Which means that I want to listen to you, and support you, and help you where I can. You can come to me with _anything_. If you’d rather speak to your mother, or Freddie, or even your friends at work then of course, that’s absolutely fine; but don’t worry about getting upset around me. I’d much rather hear what’s troubling you. There’s enough going on in that brain of yours without worrying about annoying me.”

Toby cannot meet Adil’s eyes. He prods at his shins with his toes, almost violently, as though the harder he jabs, the more affection he communicates. Adil subdues the rebel foot between his ankles, squeezing a little as his fingertips continue to stroke across his back. Toby feels caught, possessed, with hands and feet on him which are not his own, breaths which are not his own ghosting his face, clothes which are not his own scattered like islands across the carpet. Yet it isn’t frightening. It isn’t a threatening kind of possession, about hegemony and humiliation, demanding blind obedience. It isn’t the kind of possession exercised by his father; a _my son my rules under my roof_ kind of possession, in which he was entitled to belittle, and to bully, and to beat until he drew blood. This possession is shared. They possess each other, and the Love that binds them, in mutual custody; transcending ownership, perhaps, and moving instead towards belonging.

“I hope you didn’t think you were getting into something simple when you seduced me,” Toby says.

Adil casts his eyes heavenward, good-naturedly. “Darling, I’d worked here for two and a half years by then. I think I knew enough about you to realise you weren’t carefree as a songbird.”

“And yet you still kissed me.”

“And why not? I thought I’d be a more enticing prospect than Lady Theresa.”

“You _do_ think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

“You’ve only got yourself to blame for that. You do enjoy telling me I’m wonderful.”

Adil reaches behind him, and the room tumbles from evening into night as he switches off the lamp. A thin line of white light creeps through the crack between carpet and door, so that beside him, Adil is a blurred shape, denser and warmer than the shadows of the room, grasping his hand in the darkness.

* * *

 

 


End file.
